Case study: Budget 2015

The Treasury is best known for producing the Australian Government’s annual budget. The Treasury published its first electronic budget in May 1996 and it is still available online today.

Since then the Treasury has produced web versions of the budget printed products. In 2015 the Treasury took a new approach to accessibility with the aim of better explaining the key Budget measures to the Australian public.

With this in mind the Treasury developed a new entry to its traditional budget documentation through:

mobile responsive design;

interactive calculators for small businesses;

cameos outlining existing government funding;

a tax distribution calculator; and

animations to explain key budget measures.

The Treasury promoted the Budget website through social media and actively engaged with the media, stakeholders and the Australian community. The Treasury’s Twitter account (@Treasury_AU) near dormant since June 2012, sprang to life with rapid take-up.

Treasury used social media during Budget 2015 to raise awareness of the redeveloped budget.gov.au site, trigger conversation and interaction through sharable content and direct people to further information. Tweets were a mix of budget facts, anecdotes and budget information pertinent to Australians.

During Budget week, Treasury tweets received approximately 110 retweets per day and gained almost 1,000 new followers with steady growth ongoing. The top three tweets were:

Did you know that at least 6 kilos of M&Ms are consumed by staff in our Budget division in the wks leading up to #Budget2015?